Candy

For uses of this story and seeing how I do not have permission to use their name, I will refer to her as Candy. And like candy, or rather the candy wrapper she had a more or less a reputation and depending on who you were was seen in two different lights and was treated as such by most of those who knew her.

I met Candy through her brother, she was 13 and I was 14 then. She was a very pretty girl and had a smile that was truly genuine and only enhanced the attraction I felt for her. The day I first met her I remember her brother referring to her as a whore, I did not think much of this, I just thought it was typical sibling rivalry and was related to being the same thing as being called a bitch, so I dropped it at that and I never asked him why he called her a whore. As time passed we got close as friends and along with her brother we shared in a lot of things teenagers often indulge themselves in. She was the kind of female friend that you could actually wrestle with without it turning into a groping session and could tell jokes and hang in with anyone and keep up without any trouble.

She became special to me, because despite all the rumors and accusations being spread I did not see these things in her, I just saw her as my friend. She was bright, witty, intelligent and she stood by me without question of whether I was right or wrong and never turned her back on me for any reason. She was the kind I could sit up all night with, nothing being said, just watching the night pass listening to music and feel good by just being with her. At times we would talk for hours about nothing and about everything. If we saw each other on the street and we were with other friends we would usually excuse ourselves from them and end up spending time together, usually to go get a hamburger and fries and share a large soft drink and talk about school or people we knew. To me I could not have asked for a better friend, companion or confidant, I could tell her anything and it never went any further than her, no matter who or what it was about.

For some reason Candy felt that to be accepted in certain circles she needed to be friendlier than was necessary and and at times found herself the object of more than just one's attention and would be treated less than the wonderful person that I saw in her. We never talked about why she did these things, what it was that she felt about herself to let something like this happen to her or why she would put herself in such a position that would cause harm to her. She had her reasons and I felt that when she was ready to tell me she would tell me. I guess she never felt I would understand why or maybe it just wasn't important to her because for whatever reason there was she knew I would not think any less of her. We had an unspoken understanding about each other, we did not judge, we accepted and looked beyond that and just simply enjoyed the time we had when we were together. It was in those moments we could forget everything and be friends.

She always called me Woody, never Ron, Ronnie or Ronald, her name for me was Woody and it was her way to show her affection as a friend for me. If anyone else ever called me that she would be quick to correct them and let them know under no certain circumstances that she was the only one who had the right to call me that and once said would usually end with, "He's going with me. Let's go Woody." As if that phrase was her exclamation point to the subject.

I remember one evening I was sitting on our front porch watching the cars going by a few blocks down oh highway 75 oblivious to the car coming down the street we lived on, when all of a sudden I heard that familiar, "WOODY" screamed from the passenger window. Looking around there she was hanging half way out of the window waving both arms with a smile that seemed to stop time and in that moment she permanently placed that vision of her in my memories. The car screeched to a stop and Candy called the rest of the way out of the window, hit the ground running up to me and sitting in my lap gave me a big hug. I asked her what she was doing and she told me that they were going to the drive in and invited me along. I looked out to the car, two guys in the front seat and three in the back, so I told her that I couldn't go and to have fun. I guess she saw the disappointment in my eyes, she walked out to the car and told them she could not go, that will have to go without her. They left mad, cursing and calling her names, she just smiled and turned around, came back to the porch and sit beside me. We were not saying much if anything at all when she started talking.

"Woody do you like me?"
"Yes, of course I do."
"No, I don't mean in that way, do you like me?"
"I don't know what you mean Candy."
"I mean, if I didn't have a reputation, would you like me?"
"What reputation?"
"Dammit Woody, you know what I am talking about."
"No Candy I don't know what you are talking about. If you mean would I like you as more than a friend if you did not have a reputation, is that what you are asking?"
"Exactly."
"I don't see you as having a reputation, I never have."
"Yeah I know that. So why haven't you ever tried anything?"
"Do I need to? Is that the only way I can show you how I feel?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe?" What is that supposed to mean?"
"I mean maybe that is the only way I know you do."
"That I do what?"
"Like me for more than just a friend."
"Candy we do everything together, we are always with each other, we drop plans with others to be together, we talk about everything, so I don't know how else to show you how I feel."
"I know you have done it with other girls Woody."
"Then you don't know anything, because I haven't."
"So are you afraid to, is that what it is?"
"No not afraid Candy, just don't know how, okay?"
"You've kissed girls haven't you?"
"Yes, of course I have kissed girls, but that is not the same as what you are talking about."
"Yeah, you're right, it isn't."

She placed her hand on my knee and laid her head on my shoulder and started humming. Something she had done a hundred times before.

"You know something Woody?"
"No, tell me."
"You're my best friend."
"Thank you Candy. You're mine too, always have been since we got to know each other."
"Woody do you ever think about me?"
"Yeah I do."
"What do you think when you do?"
"I just think."
"About what?"
"You."
"Come on Woody, please tell me."
"Why?"
"Because I want to know."
"Is it important that you know?"
"Yeah Woody, it is."
"Okay. I just wish people would stop saying the things they do and see who I see. I wish sometimes that you wouldn't do what you do because even as your friend it hurts Candy. I want you to see who I see and know that it hurts people that really care about you."
"I don't care what they say about me, it doesn't bother me at all."
"Does it matter to you how it makes me feel?"
"Sometimes."
"What do you mean, sometimes?"
"Sometimes Woody when I think about it, I wonder what you are thinking. I wonder if you are thinking about me too."
"I see. Do you wonder how it hurts me?"
"I try not to think about that."
"So you do think about it?"
"Sometimes. Can friends love each other Woody?"
"I think you should love your friends."
"But can they?"
"In what way? I'm not following what you are saying."
"Okay, I'll tell you. Me and you been friends for over two years, sometimes I feel we are closer than you and my brother are and there are things that you and I only talk about. I mean we share everything, right?"
"Yeah we do share everything, a lot more than I do with your brother or with anyone else as a matter of fact."
"Yeah, that's what I thought to. So if we share that much, that means we trust each other doesn't it?"
"Stands to reason, yeah."
"And when you can trust someone that much and you don't have to worry then you must love them, right?"
"Yeah, I guess you're right Candy."
"I think about you a lot Woody. I wish sometimes that things were different."
"Different how?"
"You know, that we were different."
"Then you wouldn't be you."
"What do you mean?"
"That I don't care about your past or what you have done, that is something I don't think about. Who you are now and when we met, that is what I care about."
"My brother ever talk to you about me?"
"No, was he supposed to?"
"Would have told me if he did?"
"Maybe. Depends on what he told me."
"But he hasn't told you, has he?"
"No Candy he hasn't."
"My dad raped me when I was ten, that is why my brother and I live with my grandmother. Woody he would wait for my mom to go to work at night and make my brother go to bed, then he would start messing with me. I hate him Woody."
"Candy you don't need to tell me."
"Yes I do."
"Why?"
"Because you are the only one I trust and I have never talked about it before."
"Is that why you do what you do now?"
"I don't know, maybe."
"Do you like it?"
"No I don't, I don't like it at all."
"Then why do it if you don't like it?"
"Because that was all he said I was good for."

I could feel her tears soaking through my tee shirt and she was trembling. I put my arm around her and pulled her closer to me. Soon she broke out into sobs, she couldn't catch her breath and her trembling was getting worse.

"He lied Candy. You are worth much more than he told you. You know I look forward to seeing you every day. Sometimes can't wait to see you. I never felt that way about someone I knew."
"Do you think anyone will ever love me Woody? You think they will be like you and see me like you said?"
"I love you Candy."
"I know you do Woody."
"It's getting cold."
"A little, yeah."
"Let me go get my jacket."

I returned with my jacket, Candy was still crying as I wrapped it around her shoulders and then sit next to her again.

"Put your arm back around me Woody."

We sat there all night, watched the sun break the eastern horizon, heard the morning birds singing and said nothing.

"Come on, I'll walk you home."

My dad moved us down to Richardson, Texas that following year and I would hitchhike as often as I could the seventy miles north on Hwy 75 to go and see her. Soon thought with school and meeting new friends we drifted apart and we lost contact. Then after I had married Linda I had run into a mutual friend of mine and Candy's one day in Dallas. I asked her if she ever heard from Candy. She told me the last she had heard that Candy had moved here to Dallas and she was working as a prostitute and that she worked the bars on the east side. I asked about Candy's brother and she told me that he had been shot in the back and the bullet had lodged in his spine. He was paralyzed from the waist down and living in his grandparent's home. She said she went back occasionally and visited him and that a few times Candy had dropped by to give him money and check on him. She said that at some point the conversation would turn back to when we were teenagers and she would mention that she missed me.

I did finally see her again. It was at our mutual friend's apartment. She was sitting cross legged in the middle of the bed upstairs and squeezing the icing out of a tube of one of those premixed cake decorators. A new born baby laid on the bed next to her. She looked up at me and threw the tube down then gathered the covers about her to hide herself. I lowered my head, tears welling up in my eyes I turned and started walking back down the stairs.

"Woody!"
"Yeah Candy?"
"What happened Woody?"

Tears started streaming down my cheeks as I walked out the front door, closing it behind me. I tried to shove the picture of seeing her there out of my head, wanting to replace it so much with that night she was hanging out of the car window yelling my name and waving. That smile that lit up my world, those twinkling mischievous eyes that behind them was a beautiful and wonderful person. That Candy that meant so much to me then. I still miss her at times and as I have said before, she had her reasons and I should have never questioned or seen her any different then than I had always seen her before. My friend. I did something to her that she would have never done to me, I turned my back on her and walked away.

Later...

The dialogue, though not verbatim in this post is factual and this is a page out of my life that I have kept in me and not talked about. I have not heard from or seen her since that day I walked out the door. Her brother is now deceased and even though I have tried to locate her to apologize for that day, I have had no luck.


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